Siding with Euthyphro: Response-Dependence and Conferred Properties

Abstract: I argue that a response-dependence account of a concept can yield metaphysical results, and not merely epistemological or semantical results, which has been a prevalent view in the literature on response-dependence. In particular, I show how one can argue for a conferralist account of a certain property by arguing that the concept of the property is response-dependent, if certain assumptions are made.     

Human rights and the rights of states: a relational account

What is the relationship between human rights and the rights of states? Roughly, while cosmopolitans insist that international morality must regard as basic the interests of individuals, statists maintain that the state is of fundamental moral significance. This article defends a relational version of statism. Human rights are ultimately grounded in a relational norm of reciprocal independence and set limits to the exercise of public authority, but, contra the cosmopolitan, the state is of fundamental moral significance. A relational account promises to justify a limited conception of state sovereignty while avoiding the familiar cosmopolitan criticisms of statist accounts.     

Extending the Knapsack: Using the White Privilege Analysis to Examine Conferred Advantage and Disadvantage

This article describes a self-awareness activity that utilizes a directed reading on privilege and a small-group discussion format to examine unearned disadvantage and unearned advantage in one’s life. This exercise can help clinicians to better understand systemic and individual sources of power and privilege in society. Beginning with my previous work on white privilege, students can extend this analysis to other domains of privilege, including, for example, gender, class, sexuality, age, nationality, and physical ability, to name a few. The primary goals of this reflective exercise are to help clinicians understand how clients’ lives are influenced by societal disadvantages and advantages, to encourage a new understanding of oneself, and to increase empathy towards clients.     

Abortion and the death of the fetus

Abortion is conceptualized as encompassing two aspects: ending the physical dependency relationship the fetus has to the mother, and terminating the life of the fetus. Analysis of the unique nature of the mother-fetus and mother-child relationship leads to the conclusion that both the act of abortion and the pregnant woman's decision to seek the death of the fetus can be logically justified.     

User rights and the frail aged

ABSTRACT There is a growing acceptance of user rights models with regard to dependent populations such as nursing home residents, but classic theories of rights presuppose levels of human rationality and human agency often lacking in the case of highly dependent populations. While user rights models have strong advantages at a rhetorical level, the reduced capacity for dependent groups to assert their rights constitutes a significant structural limitation. Policies, practices and regulatory strategies developed on the assumption that very dependent groups can indeed assert such rights thus proceed on a premise which is fatally flawed.     

Habituation in the rat fetus

Rat fetuses exhibit motor and cardiac responses to chemosensory stimulation on Days 20 and 21 of gestation. The first experiment demonstrated that fetuses exhibit an increase in overall motor activity and decrease in heartrate in response to an initial intraoral infusion of a lemon solution. After a series of nine exposures, however, fetuses no longer exhibit motor or cardiac responses to lemon infusion, suggesting the existence of a habituation-like process. Responsiveness recovers spontaneously following a 3-to 9-min period without stimulation. In a second experiment, a dishabituation treatment was administered to distinguish habituation, which is a centrally mediated decrement in response, from effector fatigue, sensory adaptation, and other peripheral mechanisms that can result in reduced responsiveness. A single infusion of mint following a series of nine lemon exposures was effective in reinstating fetal motor responses to lemon on both Days 20 and 21, but reinstated cardiac responses only on Day 21. Rat fetuses habituate to repeated chemosensory stimulation, suggesting the utility of the habituation paradigm in measuring CNS development during the perinatal period.     

Sacrificing parents on the altar of children's rights: Intergenerational struggles and rights in deportability

State actors arguing for the rights of undocumented children often attempt to strengthen children's deservingness by portraying their parents as bad parents who put their children at risk. Through ethnographic observations in Malmö, Sweden and Birmingham, UK, this article shows how such demonization of the parents by the state is not reflected in the everyday life experiences of undocumented families themselves. While the state views the parents as putting their children at risk by ‘hiding’ them, the parents view the state as putting their children at risk by trying to deport them. The article discusses how parents act as ‘humanitarian agents’ responsible for caring for the children when state support to the deserving, rights-bearing child is limited by the notion of the deportable migrant child. These parental practices of unrecognized emotional labour are analysed as motherwork. The interdependent character of family life in deportability is highlighted through how children take on parental responsibilities as well and how stress and knowledge about their irregular situation is shared across generations. To conclude, the article argues that if one neglects the intergenerational context of undocumented children's rights, one risks marginalising the human rights of both children as well as adults.